IM Tim Taylor won the Northern California senior state championship held June 17-19 at the Berkeley Chess Center, ahead of IM Elliott Winslow and SM Michael Walder. With three strong players in the field, first prize came down to a round-robin between the three — Taylor beat Walder and drew with Winslow, while Walder and Winslow drew with each other.
I could’ve helped my friends Elliott and Mike by drawing with Taylor in round 2, and the PGN shows how simple that could’ve been.
I played most poorly, in terms of falling to old bad habits. I lost to Taylor because I panicked after a mistake that wouldn’t’ve killed me (one mistake won’t kill you, but panicking will) then went blind to a backward-going move.
In round 5 against Class A player Kenny, I managed my clock time wretchedly — first leaving myself too little time, then after recovering lots of time with the increment, not using it to think — letting the win slip away multiple times.
This PGN is broken into two parts, because the note to move 2 is so long that it broke something.
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